Alas, nobody has been able to identify anyone broadcasting in a human voice and fulfilling all the whims of a pike, but the equivalent of a self-heating wood burning stove has been known for a long time. Of course, we are not talking about cars moving on a steam engine. So, how to make a car on wood with your own hands?
Is this real?
The statement that a car drives wood is by no means an April Fool’s joke. Your personal transport may well be fed not by commonplace gasoline, but by such exquisite dishes as construction waste with a wood base.
The idea of such an alternative type of fuel is by no means new; similar cars existed even during the Second World War, and in some countries where liquid fuel is precious, they can still be found in large numbers to this day, for example, in North Korea. The secret of the action of such a magical car is simple - it is a wood-burning gas generator, a sort of magical combination of quite ordinary and earthly material and a high-tech device.
Gas generator, wood burning car
How does this mysterious mechanism work? Is it possible to make a car on wood with your own hands? Combustible natural gases, such as ethylene known to us or propylene itself, are quite possible to produce independently, and for this you do not need to dig the earth and acquire your own well. It’s enough to get a gas generator: just purchase or go the more complicated way, making it with your own skillful hands.
How does a gas generator work in a car?
In the gas generator, through pyrolysis, known to everyone from the school bench, cellulose, or more simply - all kinds of wood waste (the same firewood), is converted into the very gas we are looking for fuel. To get the desired product, simply destroying firewood with fire is not enough. The reaction should take place at a temperature exceeding 1000 degrees Celsius, with a limited flow of oxygen. Of course, the magical mixture obtained must still be eliminated from any absolutely unnecessary impurities and cooled, because cooled gas gives more much-needed auto energy. On sale you can find boilers that work using a gas generator, but for personal vehicles this design, alas, is not suitable. That means you will need to turn your workhorse into a fire-breathing dragon yourself.
Features
A gas generator is a key element due to which a car travels on wood. It is quite possible to build a gas generator with your own hands. Yes, it takes up a lot of space, but then there are so many possibilities. The forest is cut down - the car is driving. You can create a car on wood with your own hands, and your four-wheeled friend will absorb everything that burns if the composition includes cellulose. Cones, husks, scraps of parquet, in warm countries - coconut husks, even raw firewood. The stove enjoys anything. That's just wet wood will mercilessly smoke.
So if you do not take into account the scorched desert, you can get fuel anywhere and not be tied to gas stations. A true dream for those who are looking forward to an apocalyptic future with a ruined fuel supply infrastructure. And the cost of food for such a self-propelled gun will be about four times cheaper compared to ordinary gasoline. A do-it-yourself car on wood is also an ecologist’s dream, the amount of harmful emissions into the atmosphere here is several times less. All changes in the fuel system are made exclusively independently using the most ordinary tools and materials, no high technology.
Cons of using a wood gas generator in cars
Of course, such a system has its own negative aspects. Firstly, the design of a homemade gas generator is quite bulky, which means it increases the weight of the car. It must be placed somewhere, which will reduce the usable area, but at the same time, it will reduce the carrying capacity. Gas stations themselves are not needed, but it will be necessary to stop to throw firewood quite often, and even if it is omnivorous, one must still monitor the quality of what goes into the furnace. It is desirable nothing raw and without rot. Such an aggregate is also awakening to life by no means in seconds, it will take about 10 minutes. The speed is also quite consistent with the famous self-heating furnace, as the motor power is also reduced. The combustion process itself must be closely monitored, a drop in temperature leads to the fact that the useful gas mixture necessary for the operation of the engine turns into completely unnecessary tar. Based on all of the above, used cars on firewood in the old days, mainly in those places where the latter (firewood) was abundant. In all kinds of logging. Or where there was no other fuel as such, in impassable wilderness.
Gas generator device
What is a wood gas generator for a car? The secret to the operation of the unit is quite simple. In the process of burning wood fuel, a gas arises which, freed from excess impurities, passes through the cooling stage, mixes with air and is injected into the internal combustion engine.
So you need a gas generator itself, various types of filters, a mandatory cooling system, all kinds of pipelines and an electric fan - to accelerate and improve combustion itself. The system looks like this: the necessary fuel is loaded into a tall cylindrical tank (you can also square), under which the combustion chamber itself is installed. The resulting gas passes through a purification system. Further, the fuel temperature drops to ideal, and then enrichment with air - and the desired mixture is in the engine. Modern developments of craftsmen differ little from the old scheme applied, and therefore, if you do not equip a truck with a gas generator, but put it on a car dear to your heart, you will either need to erect a frightening structure in the trunk, or somehow attach the unit on an additional trailer to the car.
How to make a gas generator with your own hands?
Is it possible to make a gas generator with my own hands? Yes, but you will need a set of tools and the materials themselves. They will be used: sheet steel to create a body, a fuel tank (in which there will be firewood), heat-resistant steel for the tank where the combustion process will take place, various heat-resistant gaskets, ideally not asbestos, since it is considered dangerous for the body. All kinds of pipes that will connect all the gas generator assemblies, filters to remove impurities (Western colleagues are experimenting with the same wood mixes), a special cast-iron grate that lets through burnt elements, and such little things as doors, covers and valves. Having obtained all the necessary elements and armed with a suitable drawing, you can proceed directly to the creation of such an apparatus as a home-made wood-burning gas generator with your own hands. Accuracy and individuality of calculations of the design of the gas generator in accordance with your car is desirable, but sometimes not required. Some, especially observant and rugged "home-made" manage to copy the necessary unit, using standard drawings.
DIY wood-burning gas generator
There are several features that should be taken into account so that your car starts moving without danger to the life of the driver. The main thing is the diameter of the pipes through which the mixture will enter the engine must be carefully selected, taking into account the power of the latter.
All components and parts of the gas generator must be airtight. It is necessary to carefully build all the nodes, avoiding pipes with too small a diameter or sharp bends, in order to minimize the resistance when the gas mixture enters the motor. The main skills that optimizer inventors will need are experience working with metal. Cutting various designs, welding, working with pipes - all this will be quite difficult for a beginner.
Firewood is burning, is the car going?
There are certain tricks for moving on a modernized car. We must not only forget to throw firewood, but also clean the ashes from a special container, and the combustion products will fill it up quickly enough. In case of untimely cleaning, the operation of the gas generator on wood is distorted. Add fuel also gradually, without waiting for its complete destruction. Ideally, when the tank is half empty. Before turning off the engine, you must first wait a certain period until the unit cools to the desired temperature.
During the combustion process, not only useful and cheap gas is released, but various toxic substances, and therefore, special attention should be paid to the ventilation system. Do not test the gas generator indoors. All components and adhesions must be checked for leaks. The burning stove in your trunk, in itself, can become the subject of some mental anxiety. With proper assembly, the gas generator is completely safe, but emergency situations should be avoided as far as possible, as in this case the risk of a fire in the car increases significantly.
Auto 30s and 40s
Firewood cars reached their heyday in the 30s and 40s. Since the changes that needed to be made to the vehicle were not dramatic, they were often carried out independently. To achieve the required engine power, sometimes even created a turbocharging system. Some cars needed a more efficient generator, since the required combustion temperature in the furnace was maintained by a fan.
Cars on wood were popular where it was not easy to get regular gasoline. So, during World War II, designers of the VW and Mercedes concerns conducted their tests in this area. In our country, a wood-burning car (gas generator in a car) has not lost its relevance in the postwar period. They mastered hard-to-reach areas where the ubiquitous gasoline had not yet had time to penetrate, and worked at logging and timber processing enterprises.
Cars nowadays
Over time, interest in such units dried up, and cars on wood with a gas generator in the car settled in rusting cores somewhere on the periphery. Today, research and testing in this area is carried out only by true enthusiasts.
And this is despite the fact that environmental organizations consider such facilities extremely interesting, since waste can be used as fuel, and the level of pollution of mother’s nature is several times lower than when using an ordinary car with a gasoline engine. Modern creations, unlike their predecessors, can develop a decent speed of about 80 km per hour, and the need for refueling appears after overcoming hundreds of kilometers. Fuel consumption here is measured by wooden sausages, and those will require 50 kg per 100 km. This reduces the cost of movement in comparison with the use of traditional fuels by 3-4 times.
Conclusion
So, we figured out how to make a gas generator on wood with our own hands. The design is not so difficult, so almost anyone can cope with it.